Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Prizes, literature and language

Wonderful article in today's Guardianby
the ever-inspirational Jeanette Winterson, on the recent Booker debate.
Here are the bits I love: 'Novels that last are language-based novels -
the language is not simply a means of telling a story, it is the whole
creation of the story.' Like Maths, she says, literature is another kind
of language, not 'obscure or rarified precious - that's no test of a
book - rather it is operating on a different level to our everyday
exchanges of information and conversation ...There is such a thing as
art and there is such a thing as literature.' And she doesn't mince her
words: 'I did try to read Stella Rimington's own spy series, but ...
began to wonder if we would choose an enthusiastic member of a
painting-by-numbers club to judge the Turner prize.'

But don't rely on my cherry-picking, go and read the whole article if you haven't already.

Last night - before coming back to Rimington's extraordinary Booker speech, in which she spent most of the time defending herself and her fellow judges from criticism, dissed those who had offered their own choices, and failed to follow what I remember as a tradition of using the moment to give some limelight to each of the shortlisted books - I attended a very interesting Manchester Lit Fest debate on Prize Culture by staff of the Manchester University Centre for New Writing. I took notes and I'll write them up here if I get time later today.

'An analytical, and sometimes funny, take on the world of fiction reading, writing and publishing' - The Cerebral Mum'Other than the fact that the lady writes well, with insight, empathy and personality, that she speaks her mind and shies not from confrontation when such is necessary and constructive ... there is really no reason for me to visit her blog' - Alan Kellogg

'Pretty great all the time' - Scott Pack

STORIES

What if you made a different choice, or had a different life?

'The stories in Used to Be are the work of a dazzling writer' - Nuala O'Connor

'One of the finest short story writers in the country' - Neil Campbell

About Me

Elizabeth Baines is a writer of prose fiction and plays. Her latest book is Used to Be, a collection of short stories (Salt). Salt also publish her previous collection, Balancing on the Edge of the World (2007), her novel Too Many Magpies (2009), and a reprint in 2010 of her first novel The Birth Machine. Elizabeth has won prizes for her stories and plays including a Giles Cooper Best Radio Play Award and received Sony radio nominations.